


knowledge is (dinosaur) power

by andawaywego



Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-12-01 07:46:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11481840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andawaywego/pseuds/andawaywego
Summary: "It’s a fluke or something. Alpha practically just told them their Zords can move on their own. Maybe hers needed to stretch its legs or something equally ridiculous.It’s possible, right?"[or: Trini finds out her Zord is more of an extension of her than she thought. The hard way.]





	knowledge is (dinosaur) power

**Author's Note:**

> this is the shortest, possibly softest thing i've written for this fandom so far because i needed to power through the two angst-ridden fics i'm currently stuck on.
> 
> sorry for the furry reference. you can blame the trimberly discord server and all of its sinners for getting that crap into my head.
> 
> it's possible someone else has done something similar to this, but i don't really know. wanted to take a crack at it, either way. 
> 
> read on.

..

Trini doesn’t think anything of it that first time, because it doesn’t really seem like there’s anything to think _of_ . It’s only been a month since the whole thing with Rita ended and everyone has spent the weeks on edge--constantly wondering when she would show back up--because _nothing_ ends that simply.

Billy equates it to the dozen or so superhero movies he knows verbatim. “There’s always a third act!” he tells them. Trini isn’t sure that’s what a third act is, but she doesn’t know enough about superhero movies to dispute it.

She saw Spiderman 3, but the one time she’d brought it up, Billy had looked so scandalized that she’d promptly filed anything remotely regarding Toby Maguire in the _Don’t Mention_ column of their conversations.

Along with him dying, of course, and algebra because she hates talking about it. And Jason, too, because Billy could go on and on and Trini honestly thinks it’s sort of sweet, but she usually doesn’t have much time for that sort of thing.

Besides, there’s not much for her to add to the conversation other than, “Yeah, his eyes are _really_ blue,” because she doesn’t see him like that. Never will, either, and she thinks the guys probably understand that even if she hadn’t directly come out and _said_ it at their little bonding bonfire a month ago.

It’s afternoon and they’re tired and sore from two hours of being passed around between putty simulations like a handful of abused hacky-sacks. Trini pretty much wants to go home and sleep, but Zack always has other ideas.

So does Jason, it seems, who thinks it’s a good idea for them to “spend some time” in their Zords, like they hadn’t done plenty of that during their actual battle with Goldar.

“We haven’t been in them since then,” Jason tries to argue and Trini looks to Kim for help, for someone else to back her up, but Kim is too busy inspecting a big bruise on her ribcage and then Trini forgets why she even looked over in the first place.

Because Kim’s shirt is ridden high up on her abdomen and all Trini can see is tan skin, shimmering slightly in the low light from sweat and it’s super perverted that her mouth waters, but it’s not like she can stop automatic body functions.

She looks away.

“Aw, hell yeah!” Zack exclaims and then he’s off and heading towards where their Zords are hidden so quickly that the rest of them can do nothing but follow.

Alpha-5 is beeping out something about needing to _bond_ with the Zords and Kim snorts from next to Trini as they walk.

“What’s funny?” Trini asks, lips already quirked up in anticipated amusement.

Kim grins at her and then shrugs, looking away. “Nothing, just...That’s what she said.”

It doesn’t necessarily even fit what Alpha had just been saying and that joke is super old, but laughter is bubbling up in Trini’s throat before she has the presence of mind to stop it.

“What’s so funny, lovebirds?” Zack calls back and Jason laughs, too. Billy gives them a sympathetic look.

Trini flips him off.

Her Zord looks pretty much how she remembers it--yellow and sleek with bright, dusted metal shimmering a little as she steps closer. Her nightmares where she’s trapped inside of it, surrounded by putties, listening to the others gasp out for help around her, had gotten the face wrong, though--made the teeth shorter somehow or the legs longer.

There’s one problem though: it’s practically laying on top of Kim’s Zord.

“That’s not where I put it,” Trini mumbles, more to herself than to anyone else, Kim hears her and looks over.

“I was gonna ask about that.”

“Yeah, what the hell? Practicing some smashing moves without us?” Zack jokes, but it almost seems too serious because that’s what it certainly looks like.

Or, rather--

Jason coughs into his fist and looks away and Trini’s ears turn bright red in embarrassment.

“Do these things move by themselves?” Trini asks Alpha, because he’s looking at with those big, orange bulbs he calls eyes.

“They’ve been known to possess a spirit of their own,” he says, but it almost sounds like he’s not telling them something. “They’re an extension of each of you.”

It’s most non-answer answer he could have ever given them.

A moment later, Zack is too preoccupied petting his Mastodon on the nose and cooing at it like it’s alive to say anything else smart.

Kim is smiling, the confusion from before forgotten and Trini puts it to the back of her mind.

It’s a fluke or something. Alpha practically just told them they can move on their own. Maybe it needed to stretch its legs or something equally ridiculous.

It’s possible, right?  
.

Except she moves it right then, backs it off of Kim’s Zord so carefully that it ends up taking her about 15 minutes just to do it right.

Two days later, it’s back again, only impossibly closer. Zack makes a dry-humping joke that leaves Trini’s mouth dry and makes Kim avert her gaze.

She makes sure to punch him extra hard when she’s paired up with him for sparring a little later.

“But they can definitely move on their own, right, Alpha?” Kim calls while Zack and Trini duke it out.

Trini tries not to let the soft sound of her voice distract her like it usually does. She’s trying this brand-new thing where she tries to remain unaffected around _everyone_ , even Kim. Usually, she’s successful at the “everyone” part, but Kim being added in makes things tricky.

“It’s possible, Kimberly,” Alpha calls back.

Trini doesn’t want to wonder what _that_ means and even Jason looks a little perturbed by the whole thing. His frown is deeper, more worrying than usual.

“I mean, unless Trini is just sneaking in here in the middle of the night to have her Zord put mine in a headlock.”

It’s meant to be a joke, no doubt, but the surprise of the whole thing ends up getting Trini kneed in the stomach.

She drops to the ground while Zack splutters apologies and tries to edge around touching her--moving his hands frantically five inches away from her because she can’t give him permission until she gets her breath back.

Kim comes barreling in a moment later, tugging Trini into a seated position and saying, “Are you okay?” and then shoving Zack out of the way so hard that he loses his balance and falls over onto the ground.

Her hands are warm on Trini’s cheeks as she says, “Hey, you’re fine. Just breathe.”

The feeling of her thumb brushing against Trini’s chin, though, does nothing to help her catch her breath. “I’m fine,” she wheezes out, a moment or two later.

Kim rocks back on her haunches, knees brushing into the dirt, and she looks relieved. “Told you so,” she jokes and Trini sticks her tongue out at her, clutching her stomach.

Jason and Billy are standing over them, with twin looks of worry aimed down at her. Billy pats her on the head, his fingers combing mildly through her hair and she reaches up to pat his hand.

“Let’s not kill each other,” he says, aiming the comment directly at Zack who nods and starts apologizing again.

Jason calls it a day a minute or two later and on their way back through the ship, Zack nudges Trini lightly in the arm until she looks at him.

“What?” she spits, only half-kidding. “Gonna hit me again?”

He frowns guiltily and then shakes his head. “No. I was just gonna suggest that maybe you’re not the only one with a crush on Kim. Or...an extension of Kim.”

She doesn’t get what he means until they’re through the water and back up the cliff, as she watches Kim grin and push her wet hair away from her face.

.

It doesn’t really get bad, though, until Jason suggests that they actually practice with their Zords a week or so later.

Trini’s been doing a pretty good job of shrugging it off until that point and everything returned to normal for the most part. Kim hasn’t brought it up either--how weird it is that it’s happened twice--and she’s had ample opportunity.

It would have been so easy to say, “So, what do you think is going on with our Zords?” when she’d come over to study for their Biology quiz a few days before. They’d been alone and the words might have come more readily without the boys there, staring at them, always.

Or when they went to Jamba Juice together after school and had talked about just about everything except for the Zord thing. Trin had actually almost brought it up, if only to jokingly apologize for her Zord’s erratic behavior, but the afternoon sun had been hitting the side of Kim’s face through the window and her hand had been resting placidly on the table between them, fingertips brushing against Trini’s wrist, and it hadn’t felt like the right time.

But now she’s sitting in her Zord--which had been conveniently parked on top of Kim’s once again--climbing out of a freakin’ mountain so that she can practice “tactical” at one in the morning.

Jason figured the cover of darkness was as good a time as any to do this and now he’s clambering around the mountain in his Tyrannosaurus-Rex like the boss-man he is.

“Okay, guys,” he starts over the intercom and Trini fights off a yawn, listens to Kim sigh into the mic in this breathy way that makes her chest ache. “Let’s start with some basic maneuverability.”

His idea of maneuverability is pretty much the same as the DMV’s, just without the safety cones.

Billy goes first, dodging trees carefully while Jason calls out hypotheticals--”A group of putties to your right!”--and times it with the stopwatch on his phone.

Zack is second and he’s not nearly as delicate as Billy is. Even ends up upending a couple of trees almost sliding all the way down the mountain. Jason berates him for a little while and Kim is asking what he plans for _her_ to do, because clearly maneuvering her Zord is a lot different for her than it is for everyone else.

Trini looks up at her through the darkness, where her Pterodactyl is hovering a couple hundred feet to her right. Kim catches her eye through the glass and she smiles, gives a little wave, as Jason says, “I haven’t decided yet, Kim. You’ll go last.”

Which means Trini is up next. And she’s tired, of course. Barely keeping her eyes open. All she can think about is her warm bed, waiting for her at home, but she’s not tired enough for what happens to be her fault.

It starts out okay and she doesn’t knock anything over like Zack and then the controls just sort of lock up. Like, her entire steering thing freezes and maybe that should mean she stops moving entirely, but that’s not what happens. What happens, instead, is her Zord lurching forward like a car in manual, right on the cusp of stalling out.

“You okay?” Jason asks, his voice loud in her ears, and she doesn’t know what to say.

Other than, “Holy shi--!” as her Zord jumps straight in the air. Her stomach lurches up into her throat and she’s expecting instant death or going out in a blaze of fire right there on the mountain.

Instead, what she gets is a panicked and shocked scream from Kim as her Zord is pulled out of the sky by Trini’s, pounced on and pushed to the ground.

The boys yell out for her to stop, but Trini is speechless and doesn’t know how to explain that she _can’t_.

For one brief, terrifying moment, Trini is positive that her Zord has gone completely crazy and is about to rip Kim apart for reasons beyond her control, but--

“Um...Trin...What the hell are you doing?”

It’s Zack’s voice that breaks the tension of the moment and that’s when Trini realizes that the head of her Zord is gently bumping into the head of Kim’s, metal grinding against metal in a sort of quiet slide.

Maybe it’s the fact that her Zord looks like a cat that makes her realize, but Billy must have reached the same conclusion either way.

“Are you...nuzzling her?”

“I’m not doing anything!” Trini protests. Because she’s _not_.

“I’m pretty sure you are,” Kim cuts in and Trini can just see her down below, her eyes turned up in confusion and glinting a little in vague amusement. Perhaps relief that she isn’t dead and that she hadn’t been that far up in the air anyway.

“No, I’m not!” Trini says. “I’m...It, like, froze up and I...I’m not doing this. My Zord has completely lost it!”

It’s embarrassing, to say the least. Trini is fairly positive that she’d be completely happy if the ground opened up beneath her and swallowed her whole, if only so she wouldn’t have to deal with the way Zack is laughing on the intercom.

And then her seat starts vibrating, humming, loudly.

“Holy crap, Trini, are you purring?”

Trini doesn’t even have it in her to protest that part, even though _she’s_ not.

She’s fairly certain that, whatever this is--dire or not--she’s never going to live it down.

.

She bounces entirely after that, too embarrassed to look at the others. Kim especially.

Jason tries to stop her, tries to say that she should ask Zordon about this or something, but Trini can’t even meet _his_ eyes. She can’t imagine trying to make eye contact with their resident wall-face as she explains that her Zord tackled Kim’s out of the air and tried to _snuggle_ it.

At home, she buries her face in her pillow and tries to sleep.

It doesn’t work.

.

Kim smiles at her like nothing has changed the next morning in detention and everyone seems to know better than to bring up what happened the night before.

Jason sends a note around an hour in that says they should skip training for the day. Trini is relieved, until Kim sends another note right at Trini’s head. It clips her ear and falls to her desk and when she shoots a glare Kim’s way, Kim is already mouthing, _Sorry_.

 _Wanna come over when we’re done?_ the note reads. _Chopped Jr. is on hulu._

She wants to say no, because the memory of what happened last night is still playing over and over in her head. Did her Zord really _purr_? The thought alone seems crazy.

But Kim is sitting just a couple of desks up and to the right and Trini can see that she’s trying to act nonchalant, but she’s fiddling nervously with her pen while she waits for a response.

Trini scrawls down a response quickly-- _you’re paying for pizza_ , it says--and chucks it back at Kim’s desk.

The smile she gets in return is blinding.

.

 _would u call what u did last night yiffing?_ Zack texts her a few hours after they’re released from the confines of the high school.

Trini is lying on one end of the Hart’s leather couch with Kim’s feet near her head, her own down by Kim, who is currently attempting to prove that Trini’s ankles are ticklish. They aren’t, but that’s not the problem. The problem is the Urban Dictionary definition of whatever that word is he sent.

Kim watches her carefully as she groans and drops her phone down onto the carpet by the couch. “You okay?” she asks and one of the kids on the screen is drinking a milkshake instead of cooking with it.

“Zack’s an idiot,” Trini says and she doesn’t seem to need to offer anything more.

Kim bobs her head in agreement. “He said something stupid this morning, before you got to the school.”

Trini’s throat closes up. She barely manages to squeak out her questioning, “What?”

Kim looks away, immersed in whatever one of the judges is saying on the show, and apparently only finds the courage to say it once the timer runs out and everyone sort of groans in worry while too-dramatic music plays. “Do you think your Zord has a crush on mine?”

It comes out like a joke, but Trini knows that Zack was serious when he said it. He puts a little too much stock in this “extension of you” crap that Alpha is constantly feeding them.

Still, Trini finds herself floundering. “What?” she asks and Kim finally looks at her, which just serves to make things that much worse. “Dude, like, no.”

Kim’s face doesn’t give her away, mouth set in such a serious line that it’s Trini who looks away this time.

“I’m pretty sure they’re inanimate,” she offers a minute later and Kim nods.

Things are quiet. One of the kids--the last girl--gets _Chopped_ and Kim taps her foot along Trini’s ribcage, the toes of her sock settling under her side and wiggling there for a moment.

“I was mostly kidding,” Kim says, which Trini had sort of known and then immediately forgotten under the heat of Kim’s stare. “But...if it did, that’s cool. I give them my blessing or whatever.”

Trini can’t help but laugh--the awkwardness dissipating between them. Kim smiles at her from the other side of the couch and her thumb brushes carefully along Trini’s shin through her jeans.

She doesn’t answer Zack. There’s no good way to.

.

It doesn’t resolve or anything, but Zack seems to know better than to bring it up again. Especially after Trini puts him in a headlock the next time they have practice as a lesson.

Alpha-5 doesn’t ask anymore questions and Jason doesn’t make them practice with their Zords again for two weeks. Trini pushes it to the back of her mind--distracts herself with Kim’s smile and study dates and Bio labs that have them standing a little too close.

She almost forgets.

And then it happens again.

Sort of.

Jason had pulled her aside before scheduling another midnight practice--a gesture she’d appreciated enough to agree to it. She’d told herself she’d do everything in her power to stop it this time. She’d _hone_ or whatever.

Take full control.

And it must have worked. She’d gotten through her exercise just fine.

And then Kim’s Pterodactyl slammed into the top of her Zord and the head crest thing flips up, expanding and bumping into Trini's Zord while Kim cusses and--

Zack’s laughter, she decides, is the most annoying sound in the entire known universe.

She’s sure of it.

.

“Jeez, Kimmy, wait till you get Crazy Girl alone, why don’t you?” Zack says when they’re safely hidden away again in the darkness of the cave.

Alpha-5 is waiting for them and Trini can feel his confused stare as he looks between them in askance, waiting to be filled in on whatever happened while they were gone.

Kim looks away and Trini watches her carefully.

Billy bounces on his heels and says, “This is weird, right, guys? Cause, like, I never lose control of my Zord like that. Maybe once, when we first used them, remember? I accidentally hit you, Trini. Sorry about that.”

Trini smiles at him. “No biggie, Blue,” she says and nudges Kim’s arm to draw her out of herself.

Kim throws her a smile that doesn’t seem genuine, still lost in thought.

“Our Zords are an extension of us, right?” Zack asks and Trini thinks she might love him--at least in the friendly way that involves wanting to occasionally wrap him up in a blanket when he’s having a rough day. But right then she really, _really_ wants to kick him.

Alpha-5 looks at him, clearly confused at having been brought into the discussion so suddenly. “Yes,” he says. “I told you that already. Maybe Trini hit you too hard earlier.”

Jason shoots Zack a warning look, but that doesn’t stop him.

It might just egg him on.

“I think it’s pretty obvious what’s happening, then,” Zack says. “I mean, first Kitty-Cat over here can’t get close enough and now the love bug got passed off to Kim?”

It makes Trini shrink in on herself in embarrassment, crossing her arms over her stomach as Kim lurches forward, as if she’s about to hit him or something.

Jason grabs her arm to hold her back.

The thing is, though, he has a point. Trini’s known it pretty much from that accidental lunging thing that her Zord was just acting on feelings she didn’t understand how to act on herself. Almost like some horrible, alien, metal matchmaker.

But hearing Zack call attention to her feelings-- _in front of Kim_ \--is a recurring stress dream she’s been having since before they defeated Rita.

“Okay, I’m out,” Trini says and she turns tail to leave, ignoring Zack calling out a, “ _Yeah_ , you are!” after her and the way she’s pretty sure Kim is watching her walk away.

Everyone seems to know better than to follow, at least, which is good. That means they’re learning about each other.

Everyone, it seems, except Kim.

Who grabs her by the elbow before she can reach the ship, stops her right there in the middle of the cave and spins her around the room.

“What?” Trini manages to snarl, but the dark look in Kim’s eyes when she looks at her makes her stop for a second. Makes her shiver.

And then Kim kisses her.

It’s been a month or so of wanting this. Possibly longer, but Trini hasn’t been letting herself think about that other girl Kim used to be. That _Kimberly Hart_ who wore a cheerleading uniform to school for pep rallies and walked through the hallways with Ty Fleming’s arm around her shoulders.

Still, she’s wanted _this_ Kim long enough that she doesn’t even hesitate before kissing back. She’s not sure how long it goes on for because her brain shorts out a couple seconds in, but after a little while Kim pulls away to smile with her forehead to Trini’s, her fingers gripping warmly on Trini’s hips.

“Does this mean our Zords are dating now?” she asks and Trini wonders vaguely if hers is back on top of Kim’s in the cave she just left.

Or if maybe this has resolved whatever caused it and they’re now sitting comfortably, reasonably apart again.

“I don’t think they can date,” Trini returns, but she’s smiling and lightheaded from Kim’s mere proximity.

Kim laughs and the boys are coming. Trini can hear their footsteps scraping across rock and dirt and coming closer. She half-expects Kim to tug herself away and try to deny what just happened, but she doesn’t. She stays close.

“Called it!” Zack calls when they finally appear and there’s a thump and a groan that Trini thinks must be from Jason shoving him or something.

She makes a mental note to thank him later.

“It makes sense,” Billy concedes gently and when Trini tilts her face away from Kim’s she can see Jason nodding in agreement.

“If our Zords can’t date,” Kim says, drawing Trini back over with the playful lilt of her voice, “can we?”

Before she can answer, they’re kissing again--Kim’s lips more gentle on Trini’s than she ever dared to imagine--the boys’ presence be damned and Trini laughs into Kim’s mouth, pulling her closer.

As it turns out, they can.

...

**Author's Note:**

> pterodactyls supposedly showed off their plume to get prospective mates (or the males did, anyway) but i wasn't sure if you should like...sex the Zords, y'know? like, they're sexless.
> 
> so Kim's has head crest plume thing she was attempting to show off.
> 
> hmu on Tumblr at housewithoutwindows if you want or yell at me here. leave your thoughts (or kudos, should you want to) if you're so inclined.


End file.
